To mark World Press Freedom Day on 3 May, English PEN joined forces with Brighton-based writer and teacher Wendy Ann Greenhalgh, aka Story Scavenger, to run a very special Writers at Risk themed writing workshop. During the workshop, participants read poems by five writers of concern to PEN, before writing their own responses, interpretations and reinventions of these pieces. Their responses are being sent directly to the writers whose work inspired them, and we are featuring a selection of them on our website… This week: Tsering Woeser.
Tibetan writer and poet Tsering Woeser is among a growing number of banned writers in China. She has suffered repeated and sustained harassment since 2004, including brief detentions, periods of house arrest, travel restrictions, loss of work, denial of access to information and communications, heavy surveillance and censorship. She is currently under house arrest in Beijing after police prevented her from attending a prize ceremony in her honour at the Dutch embassy in March 2012. Woeser was due to receive the 2011 Prince Claus award, but Chinese police told her the day before the ceremony that she could not go and that her door was being watched.
Woeser’s troubles began with her second book Xizang Biji (Notes on Tibet), a collection of short stories and prose published in Guanzhou in January 2003. The book was a best-seller in China, and was banned in September of that year for revealing opinions ‘harmful to the unification and solidarity of our nation’. She continues to write, posting poetry and essays on Tibetan culture on the Internet and publishing her books in Taiwan. In mainland China her books are banned, her two web-logs have been shut down, she is unemployed and her movements are sometimes restricted. Yet she has become widely known as one of China’s most respected writers on Tibet.
Here are pieces written by workshop participants Katharine Crossley and Kamla in response to Tsering Woeser’s ‘A Sheet of Paper Can Become A Knife‘:
A Sheet of Paper Can Become A Knife
Sharp slitter, sharp critter
Paper thin blade skates on ice
Breaks, falls, shatters
All that matters
Blood clots copy book
A thousand voices
Cascade across
Age yellowed pages
The call to life
Embraces shared
Timelessness.
Like spun silk, pattern fixed
Echoes of transformation
Across times unbreachable chasms
Crystal pure
Sharp focus
Voices reach us
We chime as one
Katharine Crossley
A Sheet of Paper Can Become A Knife
A Sheet of Paper Can Become A Knife
A Sheet of Paper – Blank
A Sheet of Paper – Words, messages, meanings
Turn the page – More words, more meanings
Take from it what you will
It’s what it means to you
It’s how others will see it
It’s what it means to them
Turn the page – The Sheet of Paper is Blank
Keep writing – Don’t worry what others will think
Keep writing – It’s just my thoughts
Keep writing – I have a story to tell
Keep writing – Before the fear sets in
Keep writing – Keep writing – No one can stop me now
Don’t stop – Keep going – Keep writing
Don’t stop – Keep going – Keep writing
Kamla
To read Laura Casimir’s response to Liu Xiaobo’s ‘One Letter’, click here.
To read Michael Shankland’s response to Habib Ali al-Maatiq’s poem ‘He’, click here.
To read C K Percival’s response to Zhu Yufu’s ‘It’s Time’, click here.
To read Kitz Dunphy and Jennifer McDerra’s responses to Tal al-Mallouhi’s ‘You Will Remain An Example’, click here.
TAKE ACTION
Write for writers at risk
Join us at the Southbank Centre on 27 June for Free the Word!, a free series of events and workshops exploring literature and freedom of expression. During the day Wendy will be running fun, half hour creative writing workshops focusing on some of PEN’s current cases of concern: visitors will have the opportunity to read poems by writers at risk around the world, and then to write their own responses or reinventions. These will then be sent directly to the writers that inspired them.
And even if you can’t make these workshops in London, you can still get involved wherever you are, as the exercise we used at the Story Scavenger workshop in Brighton is available on Wendy’s blog.